The Great Portland – Vancouver Twitter Challenge is now history. When I started working on this, I wanted to see if Twitter could work as a marketing and promotions tool.
My conclusion: yes, but it’s not ready to play a major role in most companies’ marketing plans.
The negative: numbers, and tracking.
Numbers first — there just aren’t that many people using Twitter right now. Most of my co-workers don’t use it. To the best of my knowledge, none of my customers use it. And, based on the conversations I’ve had with them, they don’t see why they should. When I started promoting the contest, I saw a significant increase in the number of people following me — but I started with 40 followers, and wound up with 147. Until Twitter becomes much more widely used, it can’t be more than a tiny blip in a marketing campaign.
It’s also not particularly trackable. Although I know I had 147 followers, there was no way for me to tell how many of those 147 were actually looking when I sent out each question. There are no “page view” or “click-through” stats to examine.
In some cases, I’d get an answer back right away — the VanderVeer Center skin care products went in two minutes, as did the Oregon Athletic Club membership and the Portland Nursery stoneware pot. Other prizes took longer; in one case, I received an answer back two hours after sending out the question. All of this makes sense — if, say, twenty of the 147 were on Twitter at any given moment, and none of those twenty had any need for what I was offering at that moment, the question would be ignored. Which makes it like any other advertising medium.
The positive: the promotionwas easy to set up, and didn’t cost a dime. A Twitter account is free, and once I installed Tweetdeck (also free), it was simple to administer. I found nine local merchants who were delighted to provide some great prizes. It was also easy for people to enter. There were a few challenges in coming up with questions that I could communicate in 140 characters, but eventually I got the hang of it.
I don’t have access to the sponsors’ web stats, but I’m guessing they got some extra viewers, too — and some of those may turn into customers. I do know that this blog got nearly double its usual Friday traffic.
The network of people who know Phil Bernstein’s name has grown by 107 in the past ten days. That can’t be a bad thing.
If you participated in the contest, or just lurked as it went by on Twitter, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave me a comment below, or send me a tweet.
Special thanks to Tara Bloom for inspiring this. And thank you to Awakening Business Solutions, Green Lubrication Solutions, Market Accelerators, Maternitique, Organizers Northwest, Oregon Athletic Clubs, Portland Nursery, Shindaiwa, and VanderVeer Center for being part of the First Annual Great Portland – Vancouver Twitter Challenge.
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